


Before All That

by Catchclaw



Series: Mental Mimosa [43]
Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Lawyers, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-05
Updated: 2018-06-05
Packaged: 2019-05-18 13:48:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 650
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14853950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Catchclaw/pseuds/Catchclaw
Summary: They bring Thor’s new client out of lockup 30 minutes before arraignment.





	Before All That

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt:  
> Judge: what do you plead  
> A: *looks at B*  
> B: *mouths* not guilty  
> A: hot milky  
> B: fuck just lock him up  
> Prompt from this [generator](http://colormayfade.tumblr.com/generator).
> 
> This ficlet has evolved into a fully-formed story: "[Both Can Be True](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14874908)."

They bring Thor’s new client out of lockup 30 minutes before arraignment. He’s dark-eyed and on the skinny side, with stringy hair and a shirt the color of emeralds, button-down, almost blousey. His legs are wrapped in denim and his mouth’s set in a long, unhappy line. He smells terrible.

“You smell terrible,” Thor tells him when the guy sits down beside him.

That gets him a look, a narrow-beamed death glare.

Thor holds out the little shaving kit that lives in his briefcase. “You want a minute to clean up? George’ll let you, so long as I stay with you. Won’t you, George?”

The court officer barely looks up from his book: it’s _Queens of Geek_ , this week. “Yeah, fine.”

The guy, Thor’s new client, keeps looking murderous until he’s standing in front of a mirror. Then he starts looking sick. He reaches up and traces the bruises on his cheek, barely, like just that brush is too much; does the same to his shiner and the angry purple bloom on his chin.

“Jesus,” he whispers.

Thor has the weirdest urge to hug him, this wasp of a man who smells like a night in the Tombs. “They told me they treated you,” he says, clutching the shaving kit tight. “Gave you ice or salve or something. Did they not?”

His client’s unswollen eye closes. “They tried. I didn’t want anything.”

“Why not?”

A strangled sound, like a cough. “I didn’t want to seem weak.”

_But you’re hurting_ , Thor thinks, has enough sense not to say. Clearly, his client doesn't want anyone’s pity. He can work with that.

He unzips the case and lays its contents on the counter: deodorant, razor, tiny bottle of shower gel, a clean washcloth. A travel toothbrush and its best friend, toothpaste.

“We only have a few minutes before George’ll get worried and send in a search party,” he says. “So here. Use whatever you want.”

His client looks at him in the mirror, seems to see him for the first time, and the man’s mouth relaxes. He doesn’t smile or anything, but the straight line of his lips bows, just a little.

“I have another shirt here, too, if you want it. Not as nice as yours. Or as nice as it was, before last night.”

“Before the blood, you mean?” his client rasps. “And the assorted horrors of the holding cell?"

“Before all that, yeah.”

The man’s shoulders sag a little and behind his bruises, his cheeks flush, but he doesn’t look away. “Perhaps you can help me out of this one, then? I can’t quite raise my arms.”

“What?”

His client, Loki, really does smile this time. “If you think my face is something, wait until you see my chest.”

He isn’t kidding.

His ribs are tattooed with color, with the marks of another man’s fists, and the lines of his stomach are, too, mottled purple and red. He winces when Thor peels the shirt from his shoulders. It looks like it hurts him to breathe.

“Fuck me,” Thor says, furious. “This shit is not in the police report, Loki. There's no mention of you being hurt this badly.”

“They thought that I started it,” Loki says. His eyes are closed again, like he can’t bear to look. “So nobody asked.”

Thor shepards him away from the sink, fills the basin, drowns the washcloth. Draws him back. Swallows his own anger, because him getting pissed right now, losing his cool, is not going to help.

“Are you ok with me doing this?” he says.

Loki leans back a little again him, bony shoulders biting his chest. “Yes. On one condition.”

Thor fumbles for the bottle, dumps ginger peach all over the cloth. “What’s that?”

That dark eye catches his in the mirror and shines. “Before you touch me,” Loki says, “the least you can do is tell me your name, counselor.”


End file.
